The aim of SOLOCLIM is to develop a doctoral training programme that enables young researchers to generate solutions for urban outdoor. The aim of SOLOCLIM is to develop a doctoral training programme that enables young researchers to generate solutions for urban outdoor environments. Projections show that urbanisation could add another 2.5 billion people to urban areas by 2050 and the cumulative effect of all the negative urban climate impacts of urbanisation such as the occurrence of urban heat islands as well as distinctive wind patterns in cities create discomfort and health risks. As climate change will exacerbate these urban and microclimatic problems citizens need to be protected. As cities create their own climates, the solutions to these problems are to be found in the (re-)design of cities. Some solutions are known such as the use of vegetation, but there are still many remaining questions about the impact of vertical green as well as the proper distribution of green in cities to have an optimal effect. Moreover, upcoming systems using water vapour as a coolant as well as flexible systems that respond to microclimate have not been studied yet. SOLOCLIM will develop such solutions on different scale levels from small scale around buildings to a larger neighbourhood/city scale and test their effects. The industry in architecture, urban and landscape design is in need of these innovative solutions as climate adaptation in cities is one of the largest challenges for the future. All plans and designs that the industry develops have to respond to the urban (micro)climate challenges. Apart from the availability of solutions the industry also needs the expertise. This expertise involves design and research skills related to urban (micro)climate. SOLOCLIM trains experts in this field and offers a training for advanced climate responsive design that will be offered to the PhD students as well as some parts to a broader community and beyond the duration of SOLOCLIM.

The NEWAVE project departs from the notion that the global debate about water governance needs a reset, and aims to point the way forward. It does so by developing research and training for a new generation of future water governance leaders, and by equipping them with the transdisciplinary skills to better tackle water challenges. The central organizing framework in NEWAVE is formed by the “three Ps” – which reflects the insight that future water governance leaders should have a deep and transdisciplinary understanding of 1) Problématiques - the nature of nowadays water challenges; 2) Paradigms – the ideational underpinnings of current approaches to water governance; and 3) Patterns – the way in which newly proposed approaches interact with existing institutions. NEWAVE proposes cutting edge research on all these aspects from a global perspective, a highly sophisticated training program to teach the required skills to analyze these issues in a reflexive way and to come up with recommendations about them, and a close collaboration with several of the most prominent players in the water governance debate. NEWAVE will not only be active in Europe, but will additionally target the water governance debate in a carefully selected number of emerging economies and developing countries, and has the right partners on board to do so. Because of its excellent design, NEWAVE will help to recognize and avoid the traps in the current debate on water governance, such as panacea thinking, the disregard of institutional contexts, and the neglect of politics or normative considerations such as justice and equity. NEWAVE thus presents an opportunity to make a step change in an salient societal debate in Europe, and far beyond, and is designed to leave a strong legacy in terms of networks, insights and skills acquired.

Coastal areas are the most productive and economically dominant regions of the world. The high water demand in these regions, however, puts tremendous pressure on their freshwater resources and ecosystems. This leads to problems like seasonal water shortage, saltwater intrusion, and disappearance of wetlands. Building on national, regional and European research and innovation programs, in the past five years, a set of innovative, practical concepts have been developed for protection, enlargement and utilization of freshwater resources in coastal areas. These subsurface water solutions (SWS) combine innovations in water well design and configuration, allowing for advanced groundwater management, and maximum control over freshwater resources. SWS have been successfully piloted by public-private partnerships. These full-scale pilots have demonstrated SWS capacity to support sustainable freshwater supply in coastal areas, energy reduction, food production, and financial savings. SUBSOL targets a market breakthrough of SWS as robust answers to freshwater resources challenges in coastal areas, by demonstration, market replication, standardization and commercialisation. The route to market includes business cases, market scans and capacity building in selected regions in Europe (Mediterranean, Northwestern Europe) and worldwide (USA, Brazil, China, Vietnam). SUBSOL will share experiences and outcomes with stakeholder groups through an online platform, that will be linked to existing networks, including EIP on Water. The SUBSOL consortium combines knowledge providers, technology SMEs, consultants, and end-users from across Europe. Our ambition is to introduce a new way of thinking in terms of water resources management, promoting the sustainable development of coastal areas worldwide. This will stimulate economic growth and will create market opportunities and jobs for the European industry and SMEs.

With most of its population and capital goods concentrated in urban areas, cities are key to the European economy. One of the major challenges cities face are more frequent extreme weather events due to climate change.The current diversity of approaches and methods available for cities developing an adaptation strategy limits the comparability between cities of vulnerabilities, adaptation options, infrastructures, etc., and, as a result, the resilience capability. The lack of standardized information to prioritize and select appropriate adaptation options restricts the exchange of experiences between cities. The objective of RESIN is to provide standardised methodologies for vulnerability assessments, performance evaluations of adaptation measures, and for decision support tools supporting the development of robust adaptation strategies tailored to the city. To this end, RESIN aims to create a common unifying framework that allows comparing strategies, results and identification of best practices by • Creating an urban typology that characterises European cities based on different socio-economic and biophysical variables • Delivering standardised methods for assessing climate change impacts, vulnerabilities, and risks; providing an inventory of adaptation measures and developing standardised methods to assess the performance of such adaptation measures • Collaborating closely with 4 ‘case cities’ for practical applicability and reproducibility, and with European Standardisation organisations to ensure a systematic (standardised) implementation • Integrating findings in a coherent framework for the decision making process, with associated methods, tools and datasets The consortium consists of 17 partners from 8 different European countries, experienced in urban resilience and climate change, and combining theory (knowledge institutes/universities) with practice (cities, consultancies, network organisation, standardisation institute).